Positioning screen elements

An approach for positioning screen elements on a display screen is disclosed herein. The screen elements represent expressions in a formula and may include one or more glyphs. Optimal positions are determined for the screen elements based on analyzing positional characteristics associated with displaying the screen elements at the resolution supported by the display screen against positional characteristics based on an optimal resolution. This analysis indicates whether the degree of displacement between display of a screen element at the actual resolution and display of the screen element at the optimal resolution would exceed a predetermined threshold level. If not, the screen element is output for display on the display screen based on the positional characteristics associated with the display screen resolution. Otherwise, the positional characteristics based on the actual resolution are modified such that the degree of displacement conforms to the threshold level.